Mountain House / Ruth Gorge (Ski)

Alaska has some fine backcountry huts, from the popular Forest Service cabins along the Resurrection Pass trail to the Mountaineering Club of Alaska’s alpine huts on the Eklutna Icefield. In terms of sheer, overwhelming magnitude, however, the Sheldon Mountain House has to be the most spectacular hut trip destination in Alaska and perhaps on earth.

Bush pilot Don Sheldon hauled in materials for the Mountain House on the struts of his Super Cub and Cessna 180, and two carpenters from Talkeetna built the hexagonal hut in 1966 on a small rock outcrop above the Ruth Glacier, in what became known as the Sheldon Amphitheater. Sheldon, who was the pilot of choice for Alaska Range alpinists, knew the range as well as anyone and chose well for the Mountain House’s location.

The Mountain House sits in the shadow of Denali: Her summit, and its frequent lenticular clouds and high winds are visible from the hut’s broad windows. From the flanks of Denali, massive glaciers cascade into the deep chasms of the Alaska Range, including icy tributaries of the Ruth Glacier. Those tributaries gather in the Sheldon Amphitheater, a sea of ice located in a basin between Mount Dan Beard, the Moose’s Tooth, the Rooster Comb, and Mount Barille. This glacial amphitheater has such a grand scale that it is difficult for the human eye to comprehend. Alaska Range peaks rise a mile from the glaciers’ surface. The glaciers themselves are miles wide. With this scale, a peak that looks nearby might actually be ten miles away across a glacier and several thousand feet of vertical rock removed from an observer near the Mountain House.

These glaciers converge in the Sheldon Amphitheater before surging downstream through the Ruth Gorge. Like the Amphitheater, the gorge has a dizzying scale. It is nearly twice as deep as Yosemite Valley, and is as deep as the Grand Canyon. Unlike the Grand Canyon, the walls are not terraced, gradually stepping down to the valley floor. Instead, the Ruth Gorge’s granite rises vertically from the ice’s surface. And the rock that is visible tells only half the story: The Ruth Gorge’s ice is a mile deep, so the walls of Mount Dickey and other peaks are 10,000 feet high, half in ice and half in air.

All this vertical rock and ice has made the Ruth Gorge and adjacent Moose’s Tooth massif a popular climbing destination for accomplished alpinists. However, the wonders of the Ruth Gorge also are accessible to individuals who are comfortable with more horizontal glacier travel. The Sheldon Amphitheater, West Fork of the Ruth Glacier, and main stem of the Ruth Glacier in the gorge can be traversed with cross country or backcountry skis during the right season, when snow covers the glaciers’ yawning crevasses. The most comfortable place to stay for such glacier tours is the Sheldon Mountain House.

The Mountain House is located on the south side of the Sheldon Amphitheater, near Mount Barille, Mount Dickey, and a snow landing strip used by multiple flight tour companies. It is only a quarter mile from the strip to the hut, which is fairly centrally located to explore other parts of the Amphitheater and Gorge.

Skiers departing from the hut can get to the top of the Ruth Gorge, a location known as the “Gateway,” in about an hour in good snow conditions. Frequently, in the late spring there are well-used skin tracks from climbers going up and down the gorge, which make travel much faster. The upper five miles or so of the gorge has some of the best snow cover and fewest visible crevasses, and generally provides easy travel at least down below Mount Dickey. This area has unobstructed views of the intricate peaks, faces, and couloirs of the Moose’s Tooth complex, and of Mount Dickey’s vertical facade. If you’re visiting the Mountain House with the goal of sight seeing, plan on spending at least a day skiing down into the Ruth Gorge.

The West Fork of the Ruth Gorge, which flows beneath Mount Huntington and the Rooster Comb, is another good ski touring destination. Located west and uphill of the Amphitheater, it is narrower than the main Ruth Glacier and provides intimate views of the Rooster Comb’s jagged turrets crowned with snow. Further back the West Fork, Mount Huntington’s sheer north face rises nearly 7,000 vertical feet above the glacier. This imposing face of hanging glaciers and unforgiving rock only has been climbed once.

I also recommend ski touring from the Mountain House directly across the Sheldon Amphitheater to a rather modest rock promontory that overlooks the Gateway and the Ruth Gorge. This ridgeline, located just east of Mount Dan Beard, provides an elevated view looking directly down the gorge, and is one of the few places to gain elevation without ascending vertical rock or ice.

Visits to the Ruth Gorge and Sheldon Amphitheater only should be undertaken by individuals with experience in glacier travel, or with a guide. The crevasses are massive, in many cases forty to fifty feet apart. A crevasse fall could affect multiple members of a rope team, potentially making it fatal. The crevasses in the Amphitheater, including some that need to be crossed from the glacial lobe near the Mountain House, are complex in orientation. Reservations for the Mountain House need to be made well in advance (sheldonmountainhouse.com), and prices recently doubled. If space in the hut isn’t available or is out of your price range, camping in the Amphitheater or the Gorge is a viable option as well. Unlike a Mountain House reservation, a camping itinerary could be flexible based on weather in the region, since there’s not much point in flying in to hang out in a whiteout. Climate change makes conditions and snowpack utterly unpredictable, but mid-May is probably the best bet for prime ski touring on glaciers in the amphitheater and gorge.